TaxVox

The voices of Tax Policy Center's researchers and staff

Individual Taxes

Marty Feldstein is (Mostly) Right About Tax Expenditures

July 20, 2010 –
Kudos to Marty Feldstein, who this morning called for scaling back tax expenditures. These are highly-targeted tax breaks that are often little more than spending programs in mufti. Lawmakers of both parties love them, which is why they will reduce federal revenues this year by nearly $1 trillion, equal to almost the entire federal deficit.
Individual Taxes

Philanthropy and the Estate Tax

July 19, 2010 –
When President Obama proposed to cap the value of itemized deductions at 28 percent, the philanthropic sector came out foursquare against the idea, claiming that it would decimate charitable contributions. Cutting the tax savings from gifts to charities for high-income taxpayers would raise the after-tax cost of giving and lead people to give less. For taxpayers in the 35 percent top tax bracket, the cost of giving away a dollar would jump 10 percent from 65 cents to 72 cents (ignoring any state tax savings). That would lead to perhaps a 2 percent drop in giving—about $9 billion. (Len Burman explained the math in TaxVox last year.)
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms

Extending the Bush Tax Cuts

July 16, 2010 –
What should Congress do about the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year? That question is going to absorb much of Washington’s attention through the fall and—if present hyper-partisan trends continue—perhaps even beyond. On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee kicked off the coming drama by bringing in a group of tax experts to set the stage.
Individual Taxes

Raising the Social Security Retirement Age

July 15, 2010 –
If Social Security reform is political dynamite, the battle over whether to raise the retirement age may be the fuse. I got a hint of the passion behind this issue at an Urban Institute panel I moderated yesterday on Capitol Hill. In recent weeks, both Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who is the number #2 House Democrat, and John Boehner (R-OH), the top House Republican, have put the idea on the table. Ah, you say, there is finally bipartisan support for something in Washington. Not so fast. Both are far out on a legislative limb with little public support from fellow lawmakers.
Individual Taxes

In Life, Baseball and the Estate Tax, Timing is Everything

July 14, 2010 –
I came of age as a Royals fan, and I agree with George Brett’s comments at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, “I don’t like those Yankees still”. George Steinbrenner’s Yankees tortured my beloved Royals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I’ll never forget my dad flipping across news channels so my family could watch Brett tear out of the dugout over and over after umpires nullified his home run because Steinbrenner’s Yankees objected to the amount of pine tar on his bat. Ridiculous.
Federal Budget and Economy

We Can’t Always Get What We Want: Why Governing Americans is So Hard

July 13, 2010 –
The conventional wisdom is that Americans are fed up with their government. But our demands on policymakers are so inconsistent and irrational that we make governing nearly impossible. We hate big deficits, but oppose the actual tax increases or spending cuts that we need to dam the flood of the red ink. We are furious that government passed an $800 billion stimulus last year, but feel lawmakers are not doing enough to get the economy going. We want government to “do something” about the gulf oil spill but reject government interference in private business.
Individual Taxes

Doing the Roth Roll: The Quiet Explosion in IRA Conversions

July 8, 2010 –
Back in 2005, Congress gave many high-income savers a great gift, with the proviso that they couldn’t unwrap the package until this year. The bequest allowed the affluent to convert their traditional tax-deferred Individual Retirement Accounts into tax-free Roth IRAs. Now that these lucky investors have torn open the box, we’re beginning to learn what this opportunity will mean both for them and for federal revenues.
Federal Budget and Economy

Why Taxes Are Going Up

July 7, 2010 –
It’s hard to imagine that spending restraint alone can solve America’s long-run fiscal woes. Facing an aging population and rising health care costs, the federal government will continue to expand even if policymakers take serious steps to trim spending. That’s why policy wonks are working so hard to evaluate ways to raise more revenue. Cutting back on loopholes and other tax expenditures, taxing carbon emissions, introducing a value-added tax – all of these deserve attention in case America decides that it wants to finance a substantially larger federal government.
Federal Budget and Economy

The Senate Struggles with Unemployment Benefits

July 6, 2010 –
When the Senate returns next week, it must confront a bit of unfinished business—what to do about extending unemployment benefits. As fans of the ongoing soap opera that is the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body already know, the Senate failed to pass the unemployment bill before rushing out of town for its Fourth of July holiday. And just before the Labor Department issued a discouraging report that suggested private job creation may be slowing.
Individual Taxes

Happy New Year to the States?

July 2, 2010 –
While the rest of us are celebrating Independence Day, most states are commemorating the beginning of their new fiscal years. Forty-six states started their budget year on July 1 and most have managed to pass their tax and spending plans on time. In many legislatures, fiscal plans were accompanied with more than the usual share of fireworks, though not the partying kind.